
JAMES POTT & CO. 
14 and 16 Astor Place, New -York. 







Copyright, 1887, 
By James Pott & Co. 



Tfte Library 



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a 



^Esthetics in Worship. 




HE term ./Esthetics is used to 
express in its widest sense the 
science of Beauty in Nature, in 
Literature, and in Art. Etymo- 
logically, it refers to the impres- 
sions which are received through the senses ; 
and if we combine its abstract and its philo- 
logical meanings, we may define its relation 
to worship, as including the extent to w r hich 
the element of beauty or good taste, in orna- 
ment or symbolism, may be cultivated and 
observed in the worship of Almighty God. 

But what do we include in the term wor- 
ship ? Evidently a distinction must be made 

7 



between the private devotions of a Christian 
and the public worship of a congregation in 
the house of God. The personal worship of 
the Christian believer has the sanction of 
the command, " Enter into thy closet and 
pray to the Father which seeth in secret," 
and its special object is to seek the guidance 
and strength needful for the duties of life. 
And whatever accessories may contribute to 
this result, either by association or sugges- 
tion, are certainly legitimate, and must be 
determined by the taste or the preference of 
the individual himself. A very true and 
real prayer may be offered up by the bedside, 
the table, or the chair ; but this does not at all 
exclude the fact that another may prefer to 
have aflrie dieu, at which his private devo- 
tions shall be habitually said; nor the further 
fact that there may be oratories in private 
houses set apart especially for offices of 
devotion, adorned with crosses and candles 
if you choose, provided the persons using 
them believe that with these helps they may 
better engage in the daily prayers which are 
the rule and habit of their life. There is 



certainly no inquisitorial power in this Church 
to prevent their private use by any member 
thereof. 

But this is a very different thing from the 
public worship of Almighty God. Here we 
are to seek, not merely personal benefits and 
inspirations, but to do homage to the great 
God; and the rule must expand, therefore, 
from the limited preference of an individual 
worshiper to the common consent of the 
entire congregation, in their united and 
organic act. 

And here it is to be observed also, that 
the body as well as the spirit is to be engaged 
in the act. We kneel to pray ; we stand up 
to sing; and we only sit when the act of 
worship, strictly construed, is suspended, and 
we listen to a lesson from Holy Scripture, 
the epistle, or the sermon. Even in listening 
to the gospel for the day, the rubric pre- 
scribes a standing attitude to honor by the 
act the words of the Master himself. And 
the cumulative force of a multitude of souls, 
gathered together in one place, with one 
mind and one accord, is a different thing 



10 

altogether from the secret devotions of the 
Christian in the seclusion of his own closet 
and the solitary pentecost of private prayer. 

But this larger definition of worship, in its 
organic character and ends, demands the 
pre-arrangement of certain acts and offices, 
as well as the provision of a fitting place in 
which they may be observed. 

" When to the exiled seer were given 
Those rapturous views of highest heaven, 
All glorious though the visions were, 
Yet he beheld no Temple there. 

" But we, frail sojourners below, 
The pilgrim heirs of guilt and woe, 
Must seek a Tabernacle, where 
Our scattered souls may blend in prayer." 

It is this united act of many souls and its 
realization in the prayers and praises of many 
hearts in one devotional service that is con- 
templated by our theme. 

With ^Esthetics as a secular theory or an 
abstract system, we have nothing to do in 
this discussion, except as it relates to sensible 
impressions in certain acts and surroundings ; 
and narrowing the subject thus to the ap- 



II 

paratus and the function of Worship, we are 
to discuss the position which the element of 
Beauty or Propriety or Impressiveness may 
occupy in the proper rendering of the liturgy 
of the Church, — whether in the material edi- 
fice, which will include the architecture and 
decoration of the building, the incidental 
accompaniments such as Music, Furniture, 
Vestments and so forth, or in the symbolic 
attitude alike of Ministrant and people. 

If we are to discuss merely a question of 
taste in the ornaments of the Church or in 
propriety of attitude and gesture, we are met 
at once by the familiar maxim, " De giistibus 
non est disputanditmy But if we enlarge our 
theme to the recognition of Beauty in all 
that it implies, whether of fitness, mutual 
proportion, costliness, grandeur or mystery, 
it will include every essential and detail 
which may render more impressive, and 
therefore more effective, the most sacred act 
in which the human soul can be engaged, 
amid the mysteries, the inspirations and the 
eternal results of the worship of Almighty 
God. 



12 

That the element of fitness and propriety, 
or the mutual proportion, adjustment and 
harmony of parts, which we vaguely call 
Beauty, has a place in Worship, and that it 
is even intrinsic in the devotional expression 
of the religious idea, seems to have the sanc- 
tion of Inspired Truth. The hill of Zion 
was " a fair place," it was " beautiful for situ- 
ation," u the joy of the whole earth" ; and it 
possessed these characteristics, simply be- 
cause it was perfectly adapted to the purpose 
for which it was selected, and because it im- 
pressed an uncultured and semi-civilized 
people with sentiments of mystery, solemnity 
and awe far better than any abstract treatise 
or ethical code could have accomplished the 
same result. And the manifold and elabo- 
rate preparations for the worship of the true 
God, in the beauty of holiness, in the only 
Temple on Earth, of which He himself was 
the Architect, and of the details of whose 
ritual He was the Author, supply us with all 
the data needful to gain at least a glimpse 
of the divine idea which underlies our theme. 

Taking, therefore, our hint from the in- 



13 

timation of Holy Scripture, the Place itself 
must be selected upon the principle of beauty 
for situation. If this was the glory of the 
hill of Zion, it was also, by a kind of intuitive 
perception, the distinguishing characteristic 
of the high places upon which idolatrous 
honors were paid to other gods in the hill- 
worship of the Gentile nations. By the same 
intuitive perception, the Grecian Temple was 
the crown and culmination of the hill upon 
which it was built; and the relics of pre- 
historic tribes in our own West and South 
indicate a similar law of selection. 

In our time, we are limited by the obliga- 
tions of expediency ; the poverty of the 
worshipers ; the prospect of an apprecia- 
tion in real estate ; and the unwillingness of 
the people to "ascend the hill of the Lord," 
or even to go to his House more than once a 
week, on a dead level, unless enjoying the 
luxury of a private carriage or the conven- 
ience of a street-car passing the church's 
door ; and with the wise financial foresight 
which anticipates the changes of values, the 
location of churches alike in crowded cities 



and in frontier Western towns is decided far 
more by the natural probability of an ad- 
vance in the value of adjoining lots when 
needed for the convenience of an increased 
population than by any ^Esthetic fitness for 
the sacred purpose to which they are de- 
voted. 

Next to location comes the problem of the 
Architecture of the building itself; and its 
solution may vary from the rude and rect- 
angular meeting-house, up to the most 
ornate and complete edifice, whose lines and 
curves and angles are in just artistic pro- 
portion, and whose finished result is itself a 
sacrament of beauty. It may be the plain 
and familiar structure, whose weather-board- 
ed sides and square, green shutters were the 
fitting home of the old "three-decker" 
arrangement of altar, prayer-desk, and pul- 
pit; or it may be the Gothic church, with 
nave and transept, and choir and chancel, 
where every arch is a line of beauty, and 
whose " dim religious light and long-drawn 
aisle," with the effigy of Apostle or Martyr 
in its niches and the glory of a traditional or 



i5 

legendary sainthood in its windows or upon 
its walls, may make the very atmosphere of 
the place an inspiration to faith, and be to 
the devout worshiper a vestibule of heaven. 

These, however, are but the outward and 
distant approaches of the soul in its aspira- 
tions to the shrine where those aspirations 
are satisfied. And, therefore, we come to 
the more frequent and commonplace sur- 
roundings, incidents, and accessories of wor- 
ship, whose observance week by week, and, 
in some instances, day by day, is contem- 
plated in the phraseology of our theme. 

The appropriate and impressive rendering 
of the Church's service, shall it be in bald 
and naked simplicity, as mutilated by the 
iconoclasm of Continental Reformers and 
Anglican malcontents ? or shall it, upon the 
other extreme, involve a Ritualistic attention 
to genuflexions and attitudes which may 
imitate, if it does not servilely follow, the 
meretricious adornments, the gaudy decora- 
tions, and the artificial unreality of a medi- 
aeval tradition and a foreign obedience ? or, 
at what point between these two is the best 



i6 

combination of beauty and truth to be 
found? This is the practical direction to 
which the discussion of this theme must 
naturally tend. Inevitably, the question will 
receive varying answers, according to the 
financial ability and local traditions of par- 
ishes, and the differing tastes of men. 

One thing, at least, is certain, that the 
worship of this Church is not spectacular in 
its first intention. It does not seek so much 
to convey impressions through the senses, as 
to manifest the truth to the intelligent con- 
science and the earnest heart. 

And yet, on the other hand, it is very far 
removed from being merely a sort of sacred 
lyceum in which the sermon overshadows 
everything else. It recognizes all the elements 
of worship, and it is only in its appropriate 
place that the devotion becomes doctrinal. 
It honors the reading of the Inspired Word, 
and makes ample provision for the adminis- 
tration of the sacraments ; and its ordinary 
arrangement of the chancel, with the Pulpit 
on one side for the uninspired Preacher, and 
the Lecturn on the other with the open Bible 



17 

upon it, the prayer-desks in their place in 
the choir of the chancel, and the altar within 
the sanctuary, implies that the whole service 
is constructed upon the idea of a progressive 
advance in elevation of soul and a higher 
recognition of the mystery of the Infinite, 
from the deep abasement of the opening 
Confession to its liturgical culmination in the 
Blessing of Peace. 

Deeply impressive as every approach of a 
worshiping congregation to God must be, 
yet magnificence of ceremonial is not es- 
sential to its success. It is only occasional 
in the system of the church ; and then it 
grows out of surrounding circumstances and 
necessities ; and is impressive both to spec- 
tator and participant, because the elements 
of grandeur and solemnity are inherent in 
the function. But this is exceptional, and 
possibly incidental. The question before us 
is : What place has the element of beauty 
or of taste, of costliness or of mystery, im- 
pressiveness of architectural or ritual sur- 
roundings, or symbolism of attitude and 
gesture, in this well-worn and variously 



i8 

rendered Liturgy of ours, beginning with the 
" Dearly Beloved," and ending with the 
prayer of St. Chrysostom or the benediction 
of the Eucharistic Office ? 

Evidently, the specific answer must vary, 
first, with the special season of the Christian 
Year. What would be fitting and appropri- 
ate amid the penitential heart-searchings of 
Ash-Wednesday would be quite out of place 
on Easter Day. The minor tone of the Ad- 
vent Season, or of Lent, could be no echo of 
the Church's joy as she exults in the Resur- 
rection triumph of her Lord. The commem- 
oration of Good Friday, in the enshrouded 
sorrow of the soul, as it contemplates the 
agony of the tremendous sacrifice, must be 
quite a different function from the joy of 
Christmas, the mystery of the Ascension, 
or the sweet and tender associations of the 
Pentecost. The festivals of our Blessed 
Lord in the Incarnation are naturally richer 
and more impressive than the festival days of 
Apostle or Saint or Martyr ; as they, in turn, 
are more so than the lessons of duty through 
the long season of Trinity-tide. And it is 



19 

but natural that the devotional idea in these 
varying seasons should clothe itself in richer 
or more somber garb, as the occasion may 
require ; and that in the vestments of the 
Priest, the decorations of the Altar, the 
Ante-pendea of Pulpit and Lecturn and Cre- 
dence, as well as in the musical rendering of 
the service, there should be some symbolism 
and suggestion of the dominant thought of 
the day. 

In addition to this, we meet just here the 
differing shades of opinion and taste ; of con- 
viction and conscience (the name which 
men sometimes give to their prejudices) ; the 
variety of standard, both in the priesthood 
and the laity, which naturally belongs to 
a comprehensive branch of the Church 
Catholic. 

What does a Rubric mean, and how shall 
it be observed? If the ministrant be an un- 
imaginative person, bound down by literal 
construction to a precise mechanical obedi- 
ence which knows no liberty even within 
the limits of law, it will mean one thing ; but 
if he is alive to the influences and inspirations 



20 

of beauty and taste, it may mean quite 
another. And here the " de gustibus non est 
disputandum" comes in with tremendous 
force. It may mean a hasty rattling off of 
prayers read from a book, with an occasional 
chant thrown in, the whole constituting a 
somewhat tedious and prolix introduction, 
which must be endured by the congregation 
as a prelude to the flights of oratory and the 
scintillations of eloquence which the sermon 
is to furnish ; or it may mean the gradual 
approach of the soul to that most sacred 
function in the Church of God which com- 
memorates the atonement once made for the 
sins of the world. 

The theme naturally narrows to the prac- 
tical and actual present. In this heterogene- 
ous, earnest and only half-trained life of ours, 
where can the element of beauty find a place ? 
and how shall it be saved from grossness and 
excess? Manifestly, the element of fitness, 
of cost and of relation to ability and purpose, 
must help us to the answer. What would 
be a sinful extravagance in one parish might 
be but a judicious expenditure in another. 



21 

Arrangements which might gratify the taste 
of one congregation might also by their pres- 
ence seriously disturb the devotions of an- 
other. And the adjustment of ornament 
to use is quite as important also, as its adap- 
tation to the worshiper. The adornment of 
the Vestibule must be a different thing from 
that of the nave ; and both nave and transept 
should be subordinate in richness and splen- 
dor to the Chancel and the Sanctuary. The 
Furniture, of whatever sort, should be the 
best and costliest which the worshiper can 
afford. The sacred vessels should be of the 
purest metal, and, if practicable, enriched 
with jewels and precious stones. The vest- 
ments of the Priest should be of the finest 
linen and needle-work, well-fitting and always 
scrupulously clean. The books of the service 
should be of the clearest type, the richest 
binding, and the fairest page. The altar- 
linen should be finer and better than is ever 
found in domestic use, and its sacred char- 
acter should be indicated by expressive sym- 
bols woven into its texture, or added after- 
ward by skillful and loving hands. And the 



entire function should be as far removed from 
the artificial and meretricious, on the one 
hand, as from an unrelieved and repulsive 
barrenness upon the other. The Music should 
have a distinctly sacred character, and it 
should be accepted as an axiom that an oper- 
atic air in the choir is as inappropriate as a 
political harangue in the pulpit, and the 
distinction between the secular and the 
sacred should be marked from beginning to 
end. 

There may be a fair protest against arti- 
ficial flowers made of tissue paper and strung 
on wire, as fitting adornments of the church, 
and, in the opposite extreme, there may be 
a suggestion of excess in transforming a 
preaching platform into a conservatory of 
exotics ; but there can be no question, in 
reasonable minds, as to the propriety of 
decorating God's altar with the fairest prod- 
ucts of His own creation. The incredible 
iconoclasm which would forbid the use of 
flowers to brighten our Easter joy, and which 
would enforce the narrow prejudice by ful- 
minating petty ecclesiastical bulls against the 



23 

usage, is so far removed from all true appre- 
ciation of beauty, that it does not come with- 
in the limits of our theme. It belongs to a 
domain, if there be one, where the Ugly alone 
is deemed sacred. 

The Crucifix, with the effigy of the dying 
Christ upon it, is the emblem of an un- 
finished Agony, and can only be appropri- 
ate upon altars whose theology has defined 
the sacred mystery in accordance with that 
thought. But the simple cross upon the 
Altar is the emblem of a completed sacrifice, 
made once for all, for the sins of the world, 
and which can never be repeated. And its 
vacant arms become the reminder that He 
who once endured its bitterness and shame 
is now ascended into the Heavens, where He 
ever liveth to make intercession for us. 

If it were permissible to enter into details, 
we might add that propriety of demeanor, 
as a matter of taste, may be gained by avoid- 
ing the extreme of ostentatious attitude and 
a fussy reverence on the one hand, and the 
slovenly carelessness on the other, which is 
sometimes seen, clad in a soiled and rumpled 

3 



24 

surplice, surmounted by a badly-fitting stole 
or scarf, and both flowing apart to the ex- 
posure of nether extremities, unprotected by 
a cassock, and culminating in unpolished 
boots. Certainly as much attention may be 
paid to appropriate attire when we enter the 
audience chamber of the King of Kings, or 
approach His Holy Table for the Sacred 
Feast, as we would observe at the table of 
an earthly friend who entertains us, and for 
the occasion of which we carefully arrange 
our best attire, and deem it the height of 
rudeness to leave the banquet before the 
other guests have finished their repast ; and 
where it is not even considered too great a 
tax upon patience to wait until all the covers 
have been removed and the crumbs swept 
up by the servant of the occasion. The 
analogy will doubtless interpret itself. 

As to stoles, whether black, white, or 
colored, that is an undecided question. 
The white stole and the black have the 
sanction of the Ritual Commission, though 
not of formal action by the legislature 
of the Church; but it is almost an in- 



25 

stinctive discrimination which requires that 
the Vestments of the Priest at a Marriage 
should be different from those at a Funeral ; 
and that the somber garb of the Penitential 
Seasons should assume a brighter hue on the 
joyous and triumphant festival days of the 
Church. 

In recent years there has been a whole- 
some advance in all that pertains to propriety 
and reverence in worship ; and an equally 
wholesome relief from the bondage of relig- 
ious prejudices, which once attached a theo- 
logical significance to many a reverent act 
and beautiful custom which they were never 
intended to convey. Surpliced choirs are no 
longer identified with one particular school 
of churchmanship, but are coming to be 
recognized as the most effective method of 
achieving the result of Common Praise in a 
church whose liturgical glory is the use of 
Common Prayer. The old quartette choir 
has disappeared from the worship of the 
Church, as its predecessor, the parish clerk, 
had disappeared before it came ; and both, 
for the simple reason that each was a proxy 



26 

monopolizing the responses and the singing 
which belonged by right to the congregation. 
The Academic gown, with its stately dignity 
as a University dress, its inconvenience for 
use and its false symbolism as an ecclesias- 
tical vestment, has almost disappeared from 
our pulpits, and doubtless for two reasons. 
First, because it is more clearly perceived to- 
day than it was even a quarter of a century 
ago, that the Priest does not cease to be 
a Priest when he enters upon his Prophetic 
function, and that in preaching the Gospel 
he is, above all things, an " ambassador of 
Christ, beseeching men in His name to be 
reconciled to God," and bearing the distinct 
message authorized in the great Commission, 
and therefore upon a very different plane 
from the Professor in his lecture-room, the 
advocate at the Bar, or the Lecturer in the 
popular Lyceum. And second, because in 
the thorough awakening of her missionary 
spirit, in the same period, her pioneers in 
their work upon the frontier, officiating in 
school-houses, hotel parlors, and public halls, 
without the convenience of a vestry-room, 



2 7 

and with only a valise in which to carry the 
paraphernalia of their office, as well as the 
necessary changes of clothing for lofig mis- 
sionary journeys, have found it impossible to 
carry two vestments where one would suffice, 
and inconvenient to use both even if they 
could carry them. And for these utilitarian 
reasons, more than for any Esthetic pur- 
pose, this little bit of pure and unadulterated 
Gospel Ritualism has disappeared from sight. 
Contemporaneously, the traditional Bands, 
which really belong to the Barrister as much 
as to the Parson, have faded away with the 
old-fashioned white neck-cloth of the clergy, 
which itself had previously been abolished 
from general use as the prevalent cause of 
the disease formerly known as " Clergyman's 
sore throat." 

And so in many ways the Utilitarian and 
Esthetic have combined in effecting the 
changes of recent years, and the outward ex- 
pression of religious sentiment in a ceremo- 
nial and artistic form, with the view of impress- 
ing the mind through the imagination and 
the senses, as well as " by the manifestation 



28 

of the truth to every man's conscience in the 
sight of God," has come to be recognized as 
a legitimate and powerful religious force. 
There is a growing recognition of the 
^Esthetic influence of architecture, painting, 
sculpture, music, and eloquence, and in older 
and wealthier communities their culture and 
art must sooner or later pervade their relig- 
ious worship, as well as their social and 
domestic life. The culture which has already 
invaded our homes cannot be kept out of our 
churches, and though in many instances it 
may assume a very crude and grotesque 
shape, yet the ultimate result will be the sur- 
vival of the fittest, and the test of time and 
use will decide what is worthy to remain. 

The only canon possible on the subject 
must be one so universal in principle and yet 
so flexible in application, as to meet the case 
of all classes and conditions of parishes and 
men. It is simply this, that in the adorn- 
ment and beautifying of our material sur- 
roundings, we should devote to the service 
of Almighty God that which is most beautiful 
and most precious in proportion to our taste 



2 9 

and our means. If David could not live in a 
ceiled house while the Ark of the Lord stood 
in a tent, we certainly have a hint of the pro- 
portionate relation between the Home and 
the Church. And we have by easy inference 
also, a rebuke of that pious meanness which 
decorates the parlor with all that is beautiful ; 
which covers the walls of the home with 
paintings and fills its rooms with the rarest 
products of art ; which frescoes its ceilings 
with polychrome and carves its entrance with 
the sculptor's masterly skill, — and which is 
satisfied at the same time that the House of 
God should be forlorn and barren in its 
emptiness and coldness ; a neglected and 
cheerless spot, without the warmth of color 
on its walls or the glow of beauty in its win- 
dows ; in a word, without a hint of that costly 
self-sacrifice which would be at once a pro- 
test against a bare utilitarianism and an ac- 
ceptable offering to God. 

A true ^Esthetic spirit will find its highest 
expression in the unknown and unrecognized 
qualities which escape the vulgar gaze, but 
which, we may believe, are not unnoticed by 



3° 

Him who clothes the lilies of the field with 
beauty and who decorates the sunset with its 
gorgeous hue. In texture and quality it will 
provide for the service of the sanctuary the 
highest expenditure of means and the most 
successful products of artistic skill. In the 
domain of attitude and gesture it will seek to 
be reverent, not by an outward and mechan- 
ical mimicry, but as the spontaneous expres- 
sion of the devotional thought in the mind 
and the penitential feeling in the heart, and, 
both in Priest and People, it will seek to cul- 
tivate a demeanor that will be appropriate to 
the solemnity of the function, without being 
either a spectacular formalism or a dramatic 
pantomime. 

The .^Esthetic element must necessarily 
vary with the taste, the ability, and the oppor- 
tunities which control its cultivation. In any 
case, it can only be an incidental factor in 
Divine Worship, never a dominant force or 
a final aim and end. The element of beauty 
ought never to be enshrined as a goddess where 
it should only serve as a handmaiden. Grace 
of gesture, propriety of style, rhetorical 



31 

accuracy of expression and rubrical precision 
of act must all be subordinate to that deep 
sincerity of heart and earnestness of purpose 
which discriminate between a prescribed 
order and a mechanical formalism ; which 
find in the Church's Liturgy, not the 
crutches of a limping devotion, but the wings 
upon which the soul may soar into com- 
munion with the Infinite, and which delight 
in the symbolism of the Beautiful, only 
because, at the same time, it is the symbol- 
ism of the Good and the True. 





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